Tillegra 12 months on
Where are we now, 12 months on from the announcement by Premier Iemma to build Tillegra dam?To be honest, not very far!!
There has been much HOT AIR, rumours, posturing and Hunter Water propaganda, but are we any further enlightened?
1. We still have not fully addressed and debated the true NEED for this sized domestic water supply dam.
2. We still have not been told whether the dam wall and surrounds will collapse or not.
3. We still have no idea how much it will truly cost to construct.
4. We still do not know how much Hunter Water customers including Dungog Council will have to pay for water from the dam.
5. We still do not know if the dam will be built on time and within the original $300M budget.
6. We still do not know what impact the dam will have on the farming and fishing industries downstream.
7. We still do not know what impact the dam will is likely to have on the environment. Carbon emissions, climate change etc.
So what DO we know?
1. Hunter Water continues to treat the Dungog community with contempt.
2. The Central Coast and Wyong regions no longer need Hunter Water nor Tillegra.
3. Hunter Water’s “Why Tillegra Now” paper relies on a set of very rubbery assumptions to justify their end purpose.
4. Hunter Water’s last water plan of options for long term water sustainability of water supply placed Tillegra as the second least desirable option out of 5 other options.
5. The “monopoly power” procedure used by the Government to hide other Ministerial misdemeanours has by-passed the “due process” of community consultation of ALL options unlike CCWWA Waterplan 2050 and Sydney’s Metroplan 2006.
6. Hunter Water’s own report card to its single shareholder, the NSW Government, of June 2006 just 4 months before the announcement, never mentioned Tillegra in its future planning.
7. Hunter Water has done a wonderful “spin job” on Dungog Council and selected members of the community in creating its own propaganda machine called the TDCRG (Tillegra Dam Community Reference Group), and ALL funded by Hunter Water.
8. Hunter Water has produced copious reams of paper to confuse the people of the Dungog Shire and beyond, into submission by various tactics such as bus trips to Keepit dam, road option seminars and the funding of Dungog Council to employ outside planners as council staff are either overworked or not skilled in such major infrastructure projects.
So WHAT has been achieved in 12 months?
More distrust in this Government.
Great education in the employment of the “old spin doctor”.
More jobs for the bureaucrats.
All at the taxpayers expense.
And we still do not know if the dam will ever be built, but be sure it will be at our cost either in lives lost, in the cost of the water it might provide and the loss of prime farming land forever.
Let’s see the report card in another 12 months. We could all start writing it now, could we not?